Arena investor Chris Hansen doesn’t want to be a hero – but who exactly is he?

When you think of local multimillionaires who might put up the cash to fund a new NBA and NHL arena in Seattle, a few names come to mind: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, cellular mogul Craig McCaw. So, who the heck is Chris Hansen?

(Space Needle photo/seattlepi.com file)

Hansen is the San Francisco hedge-fund manager who is looking to raise $500 million to buy an NBA team and help build a new arena south of Safeco Field, where he already owns a three-acre chunk of land. His proposal, which he’d been working on for a year with the city and NBA behind the scenes, was unveiled Thursday as a promising project that wouldn’t require new taxes.

He may no longer live in Seattle, but he grew up here. “I still consider this home,” Hansen recently told The Seattle Times.

Hansen was born in San Francisco in 1968 and, after his parents separated, moved to Seattle with his mother in 1973. They lived in a rental house near Roosevelt High School, then in 1976 moved to their own home in Rainier Valley, according to a biography released Thursday by the mayor’s office. Hansen attended Fairview, Stevens and Blessed Sacrament elementary schools, and at 10 years old began working a paper-delivery route for the South County Journal.

He was at a formative age, 11, when the Seattle Sonics rocketed into the 1979 NBA Finals, and watched from his home as the buzzer sounded in Game 5. The Sonics’ winning the national championship was a defining moment in Hansen’s life, according to the bio. He’s now a lifelong die-hard Sonics fan.

He attended Bishop Blanchet High School for three years. At 14, he started delivering The Seattle Times, and at 16 he got a job as a dishwasher and prep cook at the Leschi Lake Cafe, the bio states. By his senior year, his parents could no longer afford Blanchet tuition, so he graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1986.

Hansen did his undergrad work at San Diego State University, and after graduating in 1991 moved back to Seattle. According to the bio, he rented an apartment in the Leschi neighborhood and started working as a financial consultant for American Express Financial Advisors.

To earn his master’s degree in business administration, Hansen headed back south to the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. After graduating from USC, he was hired as a research analyst by Montogmery Securities in San Francisco. After several promotions, he moved to the S.F. office of Blue Ridge Captial as a senior analyst and partner, according to the bio.

It was in 2008 that Hansen founded his own firm, Valiant Capital, which manages more than $3 billion in public and private investments, the bio states. His parents still live in Seattle. Hansen still lives in San Francisco with his wife, Kimberly, and has two children — Peyton and Reade — from a previous marriage.

“I’ve always been a Seattle sports fan,” he told The Seattle Times. “There’s no second team. If you guys talked to any of my friends, (you) would realize I’m a Seahawks fan, a Mariners fan, a Sounders fan and a Sonics fan, and I think I’ve been fortunate enough in my life that I could make a difference.”

Hansen said he started this arena project out of “a sense of civic obligation and pride, and then desire to see basketball back in Seattle.”

He likes to stay out of the limelight — he wasn’t present for Thursday’s news conference at City Hall, and his only publicly available photos are from his interview with the Times. But while he may be a little shy, it’s certainly not with his money; he is planning to use $300 million of his own cash, let alone the contributions of other local investors he plans to recruit.

In his interview with The Times, Hansen said was pursuing his goal out of a sense of “civic obligation” and not for financial gain.

He said he wasn’t interested in lobbying or political posturing. Rather, he said, the terms of the arena proposal should stand on their own merits.

“This is for the people of Seattle to decide if it fits their needs,” Hansen said, adding that he did not want to be seen as a hero or savior.

Judging by the proposal he worked on with the city of Seattle and King County, Hansen is willing to stay within the relatively strict requirements of local leaders. He wants the Sonics back so bad, and is such a Seattleite, that he has agreed to not put the city and county on the hook for any arena construction cost overruns or operational shortfalls, is hoping to raise enough money to keep local taxpayers from helping, is allowing a $200 million cap for public financing, wants to buy an NBA franchise himself, is willing to pay even more for the arena through team rent, would make sure the new teams would stay for a mandatory 30 years, and is funding a study to see how KeyArena can continue as a viable piece of the Seattle Center.

Perhaps it’s too good to be true, but his arena-funding proposal appears to be a win-win-win for Seattleites, Hansen, and the city and county.

Still, as Mayor McGinn keeps saying, all the planets have to align for Seattle to get NBA and NHL teams in the near future. It’s now up to Hansen’s investment group to secure an NBA franchise (the Sacramento Kings and New Orleans Hornets have been floated as possibilities), and he is looking for a partner to recruit the NHL to Seattle (perhaps the league-owned Phoenix Coyotes). Not Hansen or the city or county will put up money for the arena before both teams are secured for the Emerald City.

“I realize that this proposal must now undergo a thorough public vetting, and I look forward to working with you and your respective councils as that process gets underway,” Hansen wrote in a letter to Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn and King County Executive Dow Constantine. “It is our hope that this will proceed at a pace that will allow us to make a formal offer to the NBA at the league’s April ownership meeting, with the goal of returning a professional basketball franchise to this area in the near future.”